Model Railroading > Santa Fe's 4th District

Visited a SF south bay area layout with some friends this weekend. The concept of the Layout is if the Santa Fe built north from Richmond CA. and the time period is the mid 1970s. The scenes at Shasta lake caught my eye immediately. The Santa Fe built on the other side of the Lake on the Pit River arm. In the scene with the boaters, you can see the SP's double deck Pit River bridge on the backdrop if you look close. The track work is flawless and trains ran with little or no issues making it enjoyable. The scenery is still under way, but what parts are completed are stellar. So what's in the future besides more scenery and buildings? A operational CTC panel in a control room next to the layout. There was little time to take photos with trains staged, but did manage to shoot some photos of the scenery before and after operations. The visit helped with scenery ideas for the Dunsmuir Redding CA. layout I hope to see running soon...
Thanks for the hospitality and a good day of operating Rick...

Here's the concept:

The Santa Fe never built a route to compete with the Southern Pacific northward beyond Richmond, CA. If they had, it might have looked like this in the mid 1970s:

Two routes, one connecting with the Santa Fe at Richmond, CA, and one connecting at Stockton, CA, join at a large classification yard Chico, CA. From there, the tracks continue north through the real towns of Chico, Los Molinos, Anderson, Red Bluff, Redding, and McCloud, all in California., and up through Klamath Falls and Eugene, OR., to the end of the line at Portland, OR. We also serve the fictitious towns of Sambone, Kingsley, Douglas, Bald Mountain and Umbra along the way. A little used secondary route diverges at Bald Mountain, passes through Umbra, and ends at Wishram, OR, using trackage rights over the Burlington Northern mainline which the Santa Fe joins at Kephart, CA. When completed, we will be modeling only the portion from Chico to McCloud on the main route, and from Bald Mountain to Umbra on the secondary route.

Currently, the lower level eighteen track Valley staging yard represents all track south of Chico, including Sacramento, Stockton, Bakersfield, the famous Tehachapi Loop and Cajon Pass, Los Angeles, Barstow, Kansas City and Chicago. The hidden six track lower level Richmond staging yard represents the route to Richmond and the Bay Area. The four track Sacramento Northern and three track Southern Pacific staging yards feed interchange traffic into and out of Orchard Yard, the large fourteen track classification yard in Chico at the east end of the layout. The two temporary upper staging yards, the six track McCloud and four track Umbra staging yards, represent all track north beyond the current end of line at Bald Mountain, the fictitious town located at the base of its real namesake mountain peak a few miles south of McCloud. Umbra staging diverges from the main line at Bald Mountain to represent a secondary line into Oregon.

McCloud will eventually be the last town on the modeled portion of the main route, which will add another 120 feet of track to the mainline. Two permanent upper level staging yards (still a couple of years away) will be built. One, located past yet to be built town of McCloud will be called Portland Staging and represent everything north of McCloud. It will have eighteen tracks. The other, on a little used secondary route from Bald Mountain, will have six tracks and be located past the yet to be built town of Umbra and will be called Wishram Staging. I will represent everything between Bald Mountain and Wishram, OR.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/20/18 20:26 by dmaffei.

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Very impressive, thanks for sharing...


Steve H.

Stunning work there .The trackwork and backdrop painting is very convincing.
Thanks Dave.
Regards,DK

Nicely done, great coverage.

Great.... Great ..... Great !!!!!
Wish my layout was at that level. Now I'm motivated!!!!
Thx!!

Posted from iPhone

Now that looks fun and right for that matter

Gosh.... just no words

Javier Cervantes
Castle Rock , CO

Other than outstanding looking track work, scenery and attention to detail, the backdrops look incredible! Thanks for sharing Dave.

Kent in CArmel Valley

Fantastic looking railroad and pictures. Thanks for sharing.

Stanley Jackowski
Valrico, FL

WOW!

Great series - my favorite is the first photo with the SP beet train!

Cheers, Jim